SOUNDING OFF: TCU football team getting noticed for wrong reason

For most of the past 15 years, the TCU football program and its fans have been fighting an uphill battle to get their Horned Frogs some recognition.

Sitting at 119-31 since 2000, TCU has put together a résumé over the past several years that few in college football can match. Yet for various reasons, none of which have satisfied coach Gary Patterson or his supporters, the Horned Frogs' win totals have nearly always outpaced the level of attention they've gotten nationally.

On Wednesday, though, when four TCU football players were among the 18 students arrested in a campuswide drug bust, that changed abruptly. And with their Horned Frogs now the talk of the nation, many TCU fans would like nothing more than a temporary return to obscurity.

Those folks won't likely get their wish, though, and most know that. Thanks to linebacker Tanner Brock, defensive lineman D.J. Yendrey, safety Devin Johnson and offensive tackle Ty Horn, who were all arrested Wednesday for allegedly selling marijuana to undercover police officers and labeled by university police as "drug dealers," TCU will be in the news for quite a while.

And with the Horned Frogs' character now under the microscope they'd hoped would be reserved for their play, their fans had better be prepared over the coming months to defend their university and football program from the heavy criticism both are sure — and frankly deserve — to take.

But criticizing TCU is not my intent this week. At least not with this column.

That would be far too easy, especially if the number of drug users on the school's football roster is closer to the estimates Brock and Johnson gave undercover officers (60 and 82) than the highly dubious five failed drug tests reported by "sources" to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Thursday.

Instead, I want to look at what I perceive to be at the root of this scandal and others like it: individual stupidity and the unbelievable sense of entitlement that exists in too many of this country's athletes.

The first element, blatant stupidity, is obvious in this case. How else do you explain four returning or potential starters for a perennial top-25 team sacrificing their futures — both inside and outside of football — for a few thousand dollars?

You can't.

But the second, entitlement, is just as relevant and maybe more important.

These guys, all adults, knew well the danger of what they were doing, yet still acted with an air of invincibility that most can't fathom. They made a series of conscious decisions that put themselves and their university in this position and did so not because they were ignorant of the risks but because they believed they never would or could be caught.

That, to me, is an issue. We have a great many athletes in this country that believe they're bulletproof, and our society is largely to blame.

From a young age, we prop up and enable kids with strong athletic aptitudes and hold them to different standards than everyone else. And then when they reach college age, schools are more than willing to overlook academic and character flaws to get them in and keep them eligible.

And that, as bad as it is, isn't even the worst part. The worst part is that universities all across the country, through their mutual desire to win at all costs, have sold their souls by putting these athletes — many of which don't satisfy the academic or character standards required of normal students — in a position to be their most visible spokespeople and ambassadors.

Aren't following me? Ask yourselves this. If there were no football players on the list of 18 TCU students arrested, would this be a national story?

If you answered with anything but, 'No,' you're lying to yourself.

This is only a national story because it involved high-profile players on a high-profile football team.

And that reality is as much the schools' fault as anybody's. They, like the aforementioned TCU fans, want so badly to create a brand and be recognized nationally that they're willing to stake their reputations as institutions on their ability to field competitive sports programs.

And then when something scandalous happens, most often due to ambiguous morals they were willing to overlook to that point, they act shocked and shift all blame to the individuals involved.

We've seen a perfect example of that this week, but TCU's not alone.

A scandal like this one could happen at virtually any university — and similar ones have happened and will continue to happen all across the country.

All you need is a few stupid individuals and authorities that are willing to overlook their stupidity for a long enough period of time. Unfortunately, both of those elements are in far too ample supply.